Tiny way to get the first 25 characters

Question

Can anyone think of a nicer way to do the following:

public string ShortDescription
{
    get { return this.Description.Length <= 25 ? this.Description :          


        

Answer 1

I can't think of any but your approach might not be the best. Are you adding presentation logic into your data object? If so then I suggest you put that logic elsewhere, for example a static StringDisplayUtils class with a GetShortStringMethod( int maxCharsToDisplay, string stringToShorten).

However, that approach might not be great either. What about different fonts and character sets? You'd have to start measuring the actual string length in terms of pixels. Check out the AutoEllipsis property on the winform's Label class (you'll prob need to set AutoSize to false if using this). The AutoEllipsis property, when true, will shorten a string and add the '...' chars for you.